- Robinhood’s options-trading services faced significant outages on Wednesday.
- Some Robinhood customers attempting to access options trading on Wednesday morning received a message saying their account was deactivated and directing them to the company’s support email address without a more detailed explanation.
- Users turned to social media to voice their anger.
- “The majority of affected accounts have had their trading ability restored, and we’re working to restore access for the other subset,” a representative said.
Robinhood, the trading app that has risen in popularity because of its no-fee brokerage business, faced significant outages in its options-trading services on Wednesday, keeping customers out of their accounts and preventing them from closing out open positions.
Some Robinhood customers attempting to access options trading on Wednesday morning received a message saying their account was deactivated and directing them to the company’s support email address without a more detailed explanation.
“We experienced an outage with options trading, affecting a smaller percentage of customers, and we limited trading for some as a precautionary measure,” a Robinhood representative said. “The majority of affected accounts have had their trading ability restored, and we’re working to restore access for the other subset.”
Users turned to social media to voice their anger. On Robinhood’s Reddit page, the first mention of trouble came from a thread posted on Wednesday at 9:04 a.m. ET in which the user said their option order was rejected.
Robinhood first directly acknowledged the issue in a response to a tweet at 10:36 a.m.
We're experiencing issues with options trading and shut it down while we investigate. We currently have our engineering team working to restore service as quickly as possible. We encourage you to follow (https://t.co/mON07oWvHy) for updates as they arise.
— Robinhood Help (@AskRobinhood) December 12, 2018
Less than 20 minutes later, Robinhood said in a tweet that it had "temporarily shut down options trading" and was "working to restore service ASAP."
We’ve temporarily shut down options trading after an issue we found early this morning. Our team’s investigating and working to restore service ASAP.
You can check https://t.co/ZS733G6N1J for updates.
— Robinhood Help (@AskRobinhood) December 12, 2018
Users affected by the outage also received an email from the company:
Robinhood sent a follow-up email when accounts were reactivated, offering three free months of Robinhood Gold, the app's premium service:
But many customers said they lost money from not being able to access their accounts.
HELLO? is anyone at robinhood listening? How do my big loss back? I couldnt sell any of my options and i planned to sell and rebuy in and they all failed and i lost $$$ @SEC_Enforcement Someone needs to compensate reach out to us, This is not penny losses. pic.twitter.com/a6IB3ncx5A
— matt (@tombaker2012) December 12, 2018
Robinhood said in a tweet on Thursday morning that it worked on the issue overnight.
We have been working overnight to restore access to accounts and options trading. Nearly all accounts have been restored and we are working hard to finish this for everyone affected. Please continue to follow https://t.co/ZS733G6N1J for updates.
— Robinhood Help (@AskRobinhood) December 13, 2018
However, users continued to tweet at the company, describing losses they felt they faced because of the outage.
Thank you for your email apologising for the inconveniences. Here's one of the smaller inconveniences you cost me. pic.twitter.com/B3UqYwlG4q
— Mike Fabs (@phillyfab22) December 13, 2018
As of 1 p.m. on Thursday, Robinhood was still working to restore access to some accounts and options trading, according to its status page, though it said that "nearly all accounts have been restored."
The outage came at an inopportune time for the app, which announced on Thursday that it would begin offering checking and savings accounts to customers as part of its overall goal to "democratize America's financial system."
